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Archive for September, 2012

I’m listening to the sound of air-raid sirens. China is conducting nationwide air-raid drills today. Why a country that purports to be peaceful and not interested in war should feel the need to conduct air-raid drills is a bit of a mystery, but I leave you to draw your own conclusions on that subject.

On a subject that may be related, I received the following email from a friend who works at a large company in China. He would prefer to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons. The email was sent to him by the Party Office in his company.

I can’t be bothered to translate it all, but Google translate is close enough to get the point across:

All employees:

The Japanese government, regardless of China’s repeated solemn representations, has announced the “purchase” of the Diaoyu Islands, the implementation of the so-called “nationalization”, and signed today with the so-called “land owners” a purchase contract for the Senkaku islands “(i.e. Chinese Diaoyu Islands). This is a serious infringement of China’s territorial sovereignty, and the serious injury of the 1.3 billion Chinese people’s feelings is a serious violation of the historical facts and international jurisprudence. The Chinese government and people expressed resolute opposition and strong protests.

The solemn statement of the Chinese government, is that the Japanese government’s so-called “purchase of islands” is completely illegal, invalid, does not change the historical fact of the Japanese occupation of Chinese territory, and does not change China’s territorial sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands. The Chinese government will not sit back and watch it’s territorial sovereignty to be violated. China strongly urges the Japanese side to immediately stop all acts to undermine China’s territorial sovereignty. If the Japanese side insists, all the serious consequences resulting therefrom can only be borne by the Japanese side and Japan’s “purchase of islands” behaviour, and China will implement a series of counter-measures.

[…]

All the company party members and cadres should effectively improve their sense of responsibility, to take up the responsibility of the maintenance of stability work, should take the lead to stick to their own posts, guide the masses of workers rational expression of patriotic fervour in accordance with the law, to unite and move forward together. To work together with all Chinese united, will move forward together, patriotic passion into power in action, take concrete actions to promote the cause […], to promote the harmonious development of the motherland prosperous and strong!

What the fuck is it with little towels, Chinese people? Why do you all seem to have this irresistible urge to carry small towels, often tied around your wrists? It’s a mystery to me, it really is. A friend suggested that little towels were a reflection of the dick sizes of the people who have them, but he can’t be right, because then we’d be talking about what is generally referred to as ‘lint’. Another friend suggested that you Chinese needed them to wipe the sweat from your brow, but that can’t be it either, as no one has ever observed any of you working hard enough to break into a sweat. And we know you don’t use them as handkerchiefs, because if you don’t clear your noses with a snort onto the street, then you excavate the contents of your skull with your fingers (is this what you mean by ‘brain drain’?) So what is it? I really, really would like to know.

And while we’re on the subject of things I’d like to know, why is it you are never without little plastic bags of food? Well, I use the word ‘food’, but this is really stretching the definition of the word to it’s fullest possible extent. At any rate, for the sake of moving the discussion forwards and all the rest of that corporate bullshit, let us assume on this occasion that the stuff you are forever putting into your gaping maws is food, and then you can address the larger issue of why? Why? WHY? It cannot be that you are hungry, can it? Do you really need to always be carrying this stuff around in little plastic bags in case you are faced with a natural disaster or emergency, like not having eaten for forty minutes, for example? Mrs MyLaowai will start eating snacks even as the pizza delivery guy is knocking on the door, and when questioned, will state that she is starving. Starving? When the pizza delivery guy is knocking at the door? Seriously? She can’t wait fifteen seconds longer (and bear in mind, it’s been a less than a quarter of an hour since she last ate)? I’ve seen Chinese people cry when forced to delay a lunch break for fifteen minutes, and quite frankly, that’s worse than pathetic. What is with you lot and food?

Timekeeping, that’s another little point I should like clarification on. More precisely, your complete and utter lack of any ability to keep time. Hey, I know the Spanish are very consistently late to the point of tomorrow, and the Italians to the point of never, but they are aware of this and consider it a great freedom (yet remain puzzled as to why their economies are in the toilet, but that’s another subject altogether). I am also (painfully) aware of the German obsession with being precisely on time to the nanosecond, even when all they will do when they arrive is scratch their balls and be unhelpful, but again this is something of which they are aware. You Chinese are just not aware of time at all. Watches are just expensive jewellery for you, aren’t they? Even your horrible, grating language seems to have no tenses – everything is always “now”, without any conception of what happened before or what will happen next. I have never – never – had a Chinese arrive on time for anything. Hell, most times you people don’t even arrive at the right place, let alone the right time. I have a theory about this, that you are unaware of a thing we Laowai refer to as ‘consequences’. Consequences means that if you do something, something else might happen. A good example would be balancing my expensive crockery and crystal in a precarious pile (after failing to wash it properly), and then being surprised at the expensive-sounding noise coming from the kitchen twenty minutes later, and being further surprised – staggered, even – at the mess you see the next time you walk past the kitchen, and even later expressing shock at the cuts that have magically appeared on the feet of the next person to walk into the kitchen. This is consequences, and you clearly have not the faintest concept of them. Could this be the source of your magical power to find time incomprehensible? COULD IT?

I won’t, for now, do more than touch on the subject of sleeping, and your need to sleep for every second of the day you are not putting food into your traps. Nor will I devote much time enquiring into the mystery of your aversion to soap or water or toothbrushes. And I really haven’t the heart to start a discussion on why you’ll spend ten times longer telling me all the reasons why something can’t be done than it takes to just do the fucking thing in the first place.

But why, really why, are you just so fucking inept at everything you do?
Moving in straight lines, for instance…